Israel Is Losing Friends In High Places: New Age Islam's Selection, 10 March 2016
• The dark side of the EU-Turkey refugee deal
Al Jazeera
• What Palestinian-Israeli security cooperation?
By Seth Binder
• Iraq: The reinvention of Muqtada al-Sadr
Ibrahim Al-Marashi
• As we await Iran’s openness
By Abdulrahman al-Rashed
• Let the Syrian hostilities begin again at Geneva
Chris Doyle
• Iran Mocks Obama
Saudi Gazette
Compiled by New Age Islam Edit Bureau
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Israel is losing friends in high places
By Yossi Mekelberg
Wednesday, 9 March 2016
Whenever criticized by foreigners Israelis shrug their shoulder and maintain, in what has become an almost a cult response, “anyway the whole world is against us”. This response is employed according to needs toward friends and foes alike, sometimes towards friends with more venom, as they are expected to support Israeli’s every whim.
In a survey last year 71 per cent agreed with the statement “the countries of the world make moral demands of Israel that they do not make of other countries that are in situations of conflict.” Most recently the British prime minister was on the receiving end of accusations of bias against Israel for daring to criticize the Israeli occupation generally and settlements policy more specifically. Cameron is in truth regarded as one the friendliest of British prime ministers towards Israel ever, and undoubtedly one of the least critical among European leaders of the current Israeli government.
David Cameron has a much bigger fish to fry right now than entering into the Israeli-Palestinian fray. At least until June his big battle is winning the Brexit referendum and keeping his own Conservative party and leadership intact. It is also the case that not a single politician has found it rewarding thus far to try to persuade Netanyahu to see sense regarding his Jewish settlement policy.
Similarly, it has been futile to try to make the Israeli government accept that there is an international consensus that the occupation of Palestinian territory and colonizing it with Jewish settlements is illegal and provocative. It violates international law and it is widely seen as a deliberate Israeli attempt to derail a peace agreement based on two-state solution. On this issue the there is at best a nuanced difference between Israel’s closest ally the United States and the European Union.
By asserting that what Israel is doing in East Jerusalem amounted to an effective encirclement of the Arab areas of the city, and that it was genuinely shocking to him, the British prime minister was merely stating what he observed during his visit to the city. This is the approach taken by all EU countries and reflects numerous UN resolutions.
''Attempting to silence countries for their past, in a rather pathetic attempt to avoid accountability for the Israeli occupation and settlement expansion, does not work anymore''.-Yossi Mekelberg.
Netanyahu’s compulsive need to react to any criticism, once again provided a window into his patronizing and colonialist set of values. In tandem with the mayor of Jerusalem, they both lectured Cameron that Israel’s control of the city, and by extension of the rest of the West Bank, is the last line of defence from militant Islam taking over and it. Moreover, they stated that Israel brings progress and development to the Palestinians.
They both conveniently ignore that it is for the Palestinians themselves to decide whether they would like Israel to play their knight in the shining armour. A more empirical approach, considering Palestinian resistance and the views they express in public opinion polls, indicates the complete opposite. They would like to determine their future by themselves not leave it for the Israelis to decide.
In the Israeli prime minister’s book, certain countries have a lesser right than others to express even the slightest of concerns regarding Israeli policies. Most obvious is Germany, and to a lesser extent Great Britain due to its role during the Mandate over Palestine and for not doing enough to save Jews during the Second World War.
However, attempting to silence countries for their past, in a rather pathetic attempt to avoid accountability for the Israeli occupation and settlement expansion, does not work anymore.
In recent weeks France, for example, is advancing the idea of convening an international peace summit, despite Israel’s fierce opposition. Laurent Fabius, until last month French foreign minister, not only condemned the constant settlement building, but also pleaded the world not to allow the two-state solution to unravel. He explicitly warned that France would formally recognize a Palestinian state if diplomatic efforts failed to end the conflict.
Fabius, as many others, understands that recognizing Palestinian statehood outside a comprehensive agreement between Israel and the Palestinians is a major lever to pressure Israel to change its current policies. Israel rejects the notion of Palestinian self-determination recognition as separate issue from a peace package deal that addresses all outstanding issues, a notion that most of the international community has subscribed to since the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993.
The two-state solution
However, there is a growing international realization that the Netanyahu government has no intention of cooperating in advancing peace, hence condemnation and resigning to other ideas and tactics by world leaders has become more frequent.
What should worry Israelis most is that consecutive Israeli governments are blind to the fact that without negotiating in good faith, the two state solution is quickly disappearing, the Palestinian society is abandoning this option and the world is turning against the Jewish state.
Mounting verbal attacks on foreign leaders might provide Netanyahu a sense of instant gratification for standing up for Israeli interests, but in reality he isolates Israel further and further from its closest of friends and allies.
If he had any sense of history, he would have recognized that by delaying a genuine, just and viable solution, Israel encourages the radicalization of considerable parts of the Palestinian society, allows the space for the BDS ideas to prosper and alienates friends. This approach compromises the long term survival of the Jewish state as an independent state.
Efforts to improve bilateral relations will be bolstered by the lifting of the tourist ban, as it is impossible to build friendship without trust. Until Russia trusts Egypt with the wellbeing of its citizens, all other fields of cooperation will be affected.
However, lifting the ban is unlikely before autumn. Firstly, Russia needs to guarantee the huge tourism boom for the summer season to its domestic destinations such as Sochi and Crimea. Secondly, by autumn the situation in Syria is expected to be clearer, and ISIS significantly weakened.
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/2016/03/09/Israel-is-losing-friends-in-high-places.html
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The dark side of the EU-Turkey refugee deal
Al-Jazeera
09 Mar 2016
If the refugees are a cause of crisis, how does the EU imagine that offloading them to Turkey is any less of a crisis?
How do you solve a crisis? By brushing it far enough away from your gaze that you can pretend that it's no longer there? That at least appears to be the European Union approach.
For the past year, the refugee crisis has torn at the heart of the EU, creating deep tensions between members, and raising questions about the future of freedom of movement within its borders, and indeed about the future of the EU itself.
Europe's leaders have been desperately trying to figure out a solution. And this week, after months of negotiation, they stitched together a deal with Turkey - a deal that effectively allows the EU to push the problem far enough away to pretend that it's not there.
Under the deal, the fine details of which are still being hammered out, all new, irregular migrants crossing from Turkey to Greece will be sent back. A "one-for-one" agreement will allow one Syrian from a Turkish refugee camp to be resettled in the EU, for every Syrian refugee returned to Turkey from Greece. For non-Syrians, the route to Europe is entirely cut off.
In return, the EU has promised to speed up plans for Turks to travel visa-free inside the Schengen area and to actually pay Ankara some of the $3.3bn that was promised in October for Turkish help in closing its borders to migrants.
Turkey has reportedly asked for an extra $3.3bn, which is still under negotiation. Turkey has also demanded that concrete steps be taken to resume its accession negotiations with the EU.
Numbers matter
The EU has a population of more than 500 million and a gross domestic product per capita of about $27,000. Turkey has a population of 75 million and a GDP per capita of $9,000.
If the arrival in the EU of a million migrants and refugees is an unacceptable imposition and the cause of a major crisis, how does the EU imagine that offloading them to Turkey will be any less of an imposition or crisis?
Some of the poorest countries in the world already bear the greatest burden when it comes to helping refugees. If these countries were to adopt Europe's attitude, there really would be a crisis.Dimitris Avramopoulos, the EU commissioner for migration, has described the bottleneck of migrants and refugees in Greece, created by the closing of borders further north, as raising "the possibility of a humanitarian crisis of a large scale". Why should bottling migrants up in Turkey rather than in Greece be any different?
What the deal envisages is the forced collective expulsion of migrants and refugees from Greece to Turkey.
Leave aside the morality, think of the practicalities. Do the EU leaders think that tens of thousands of migrants and refugees will meekly accept their fate and return quietly?
Throughout the past year migrants and refugees have shown their willingness to take enormous risks and put up with great hardships. They have shown also their willingness to stand up to the authorities if pushed too far.
If only a small number of those being forcibly repatriated resist, one can imagine the scenes in the camps or at the train stations or the airports.
The numbers of migrants and refugees coming to Europe are indeed large. But it is worth putting those numbers in context. One million of them constitutes less than 0.2 percent of the EU's population.
Turkey with a population one seventh that of the EU is already host to 2.7 million Syrian refugees. (Those are the official figures; the real number is likely to be more than three million.)
There are already 1.3 million Syrian refugees in Lebanon - 20 percent of the population. That is the equivalent of Europe playing host to 100 million refugees. Pakistan and Iran each have over one million refugees within their borders.
Some of the poorest countries in the world, in other words, already bear the greatest burden when it comes to helping refugees. If these countries were to adopt Europe's attitude, there really would be a crisis.
This is perhaps the most immoral aspect of the EU's policy: at its heart seems to be the idea that dealing with migrants and refugees should be an issue primarily for poor countries.
Turning a blind eye
Far from the Turkey deal being a "historic breakthrough", as Donald Tusk, the European Council president, described it, it follows the pattern of previous EU migration policies.
Since the 1990s, the EU has adopted a three-pronged strategy: criminalising migrants; militarising border controls; and outsourcing the problem by paying non-EU states - most notoriously Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's Libya (PDF) - huge amounts of money to act as Europe's immigration police,; in effect, relocating Europe's borders to beyond Europe. Push the problem outside of Europe and pretend that it's not there.
The one country that has come out of this whole debacle with honour is Greece. Effectively abandoned by the rest of the Europe - as Macedonia and other countries to the north have closed their borders - and suffering grievously from an economic crisis and from austerity policies imposed primarily at the behest of the EU, the people of Greece have nevertheless shown an admirable moral commitment to migrants.
True, there have been some anti-migrant demonstrations, and the far-right Golden Dawn won 7 percent of the vote in last year's general election. But mostly Greeks have shown enormous solidarity.
Some 14,000 migrants and refugees are trapped in Idomeni on the Greek side of the Macedonian border, after the Macedonian authorities decided to allow only a handful to enter each day. "I have admiration for these people because they still have hope," said the local deputy mayor, Evelina Politidou, adding that helping them was a "moral obligation".
The island of Lesbos, close to the Turkish coast, is at the very centre of the crisis. The number of migrants and refugees who have arrived on the island in the first two months of 2016 alone is about the same as Lesbos' normal population. Yet, the locals continue to support migrants with food, shelter and solidarity.
Meanwhile the EU, despite commitments to relocate 66,400 refugees from Greece, has provided places for only 325. "It is amazing", as the UNHCR chief Antonio Guterres told Lesbos Mayor Spyros Galinos recently, "that on a small island you are managing, whereas in a big Europe, with half a billion people, they are finding it so difficult".
There is a lesson there in morality and solidarity that all Europe could learn.
aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/03/dark-side-eu-turkey-refugee-deal-160309080433064.html
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What Palestinian-Israeli security cooperation?
By Seth Binder
09 Mar 2016
Effective policing and cooperation cannot be provided under the occupation.
About a month ago a Palestinian security officer shot three Israeli soldiers near the settlement of Beit El before being shot and killed by Israeli soldiers. He was the second Palestinian security officer involved in an attack on Israelis since the recent wave of attacks began last October.
Although Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces were involved in these two attacks, this is not emblematic of the security forces since the end of the Second Intifada.
With the help of security assistance over the past eight years, the United States has helped the Palestinians build effective and professional forces that have resulted in a more stable, less violent West Bank.
Transformation through US aid
Recently though, with the rise of lone-wolf attacks and skirmishes between the Israeli military and Palestinians, security is becoming more fragile, but not due to a lack of effort from PA security forces.
Since 2008, the US has provided more than $815m in security assistance to Palestinian security forces, mostly through the International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement programme - making Palestine one of the largest recipients of assistance through that programme during that period.
The US funds have now trained more than 20,000 of the 45,000 PA security forces and provided thousands of pieces of non-lethal equipment from uniforms to vehicles.
From case management to civil-military relations, PA security forces have received basic training skills such as marksmanship and more advanced training on counterterrorism.
The security forces have been condensed from more than 10 independent agencies to eight structured units with operational delineation: They created a division between the civil and military justice sectors, and built training facilities.
Security cooperation does not just benefit Israel though, which helps explain why Abbas has been so hesitant to end the relationship. By working with the Israelis, Palestinians understand that their best hope for a future state will take convincing Israel that they are capable of overseeing security in the West Bank.
In addition, the Palestinian Ministry of Interior now regularly develops three-year security sector strategy reports. The most recent report (2014-2016) includes points of emphasis on community engagement, respect for the rule of law, financial accountability, and promotion of human rights and gender equality.
Maybe most importantly though, relative calm returned to the West Bank following the disorder of the Second Intifada that included rampant crime and extortion in addition to the violence.
Deteriorating rule of law
But it's not all good news. More than 80 percent of Palestinians see the PA as corrupt. In addition, despite improvements, the PA security forces have continued to violate human rights including cases of torture and infringements on free speech (PDF).
In one recent example, the PA arrested journalist Salim Sweidan on questionable charges like "the publication of articles harmful to Palestinian national unity". He was released four days later on $1,400 bail and an online apology, but still faces a court date on March 12 according to a conversation with Sweidan.
As Yezid Sayigh, a senior associate at the Carnegie Middle East Centre noted, "enhanced technical capability and growing professionalism do not guarantee the rule of law," and in fact has only led to further authoritarianism.
One of the main reasons for providing an average of more than $100m a year in US security assistance has been not just to build effective forces, but to incentivize security cooperation between Israel and Palestine.
In reality though, effective policing and cooperation cannot be provided under the occupation. According to interviews I conducted with officers in the Ministry of Interior, policing the West Bank is impossible without coordinating with Israel. For example, the PA security forces need approval to even move units outside of or between Area A of the West Bank.
In a recent poll though, 70 percent of Palestinians favoured ending cooperation. The PA security forces are seen as subcontractors allowing Israel to maintain the occupation while softening Israel's image at home and abroad.
This, in part, led the Palestinian Liberation Organisation's Central Committee to vote to suspend all security cooperation with Israel, and PA President Mahmoud Abbas to declare that Palestine was no longer bound by the Oslo Accords - although neither has led to a disruption in cooperation.
Many Israelis, on the other hand, support cooperation. It allows the Israeli military, who has ultimate control over all areas of the West Bank, to save blood and treasure by not having to serve as the primary police force in Area A, while still helping it collect intelligence to thwart attacks on Israelis.
Some Israelis still don't trust the PA security forces, fearing turmoil similar to the Second Intifada where they resorted to violence against Israeli forces.
A test case
Security cooperation does not just benefit Israel though, which helps explain why Abbas has been so hesitant to end the relationship. By working with the Israelis, Palestinians understand that their best hope for a future state will take convincing Israel that they are capable of overseeing security in the West Bank.
The recent violence wave might be its toughest test since 2008, but it seems to be holding things together - if just barely.
The head of the General Intelligence Service, or Mukhabarat, Major General Majid Faraj insisted that since October of last year, PA intelligence has prevented 200 attacks against Israelis, confiscated weapons, and arrested approximately 100 Palestinians.
Ultimately however, as the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon recently noted, "Palestinian frustration and grievances are growing under the weight of nearly a half-century of occupation."
The US security assistance has helped professionalize the PA security forces and create a relatively stable West Bank, but that success relies on the hopes of a Palestinian state. And they seem to be running out of it.
aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/03/palestinian-israeli-security-cooperation-160309091052648.html
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Iraq: The reinvention of Muqtada al-Sadr
Ibrahim Al-Marashi
09 Mar 2016
Shia leader has emerged as a shrewd political operator, developing a personality cult and a Shia sub-culture in Iraq.
In February, the Shia cleric Muqtada Sadr led a rally in Baghdad's Tahrir Square, pressing Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to deliver reforms he promised in response to anti-government protests that erupted in August 2015.
Sadr's ability to mobilise a crowd of close to 100,000 demonstrates his ability to reinvent himself, once again, in Iraq's post-2003 political landscape. In Sadr's latest political incarnation, he has embraced the politics of protest to become both an anti-politician and king-maker. His latest rally is symbolic of his political movement's evolution over a decade, a reflection of the vicissitudes of Iraq's politics since 2003.
Sadr's political prominence is startling given that his rise to power was not a certainty in post-2003 Iraq, and was almost undermined at several junctures. After the invasion of Iraq, Sadr was a young cleric in his late 20s, who only had his father's reputation at his disposal.
His father, Ayatollah Mohammed Sadiq Sadr, a prominent Shia cleric opposed to Saddam Hussein, was murdered in 1999 by Iraqi intelligence agents. After years in hiding following the assassination of his father, Muqtada reappeared in Najaf when Baathist control collapsed in 2003.
The assertion of Sadr
At that moment he had to decide how he would capitalise on his father's reputation and following to best manoeuvre his way through the new political landscape.
In 2003, Sadr had to live up to the charisma his father enjoyed. Muqtada inherited a network that his father had developed among Iraq's urban Shia poor, concentrated in the Baghdad district rebranded as Sadr City.
It is probable that older figures in the Sadrist network had sought to control Sadr because of his young age and use him as a figurehead, the same way a regent controls a boy king.
It was likely that older figures in the Sadrist network had sought to control Sadr due to his young age and use him as a figure head, the way a regent controls a boy king.
Thirteen years on, however, his latest rally represents a culminating event in Sadr's career. He has carved out his own position in regard to: the older, more respected Shia cleric in Najaf, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani; to Iran, which had always sought to manipulate the Sadr and the Sadrists as a pawn and proxy; an array of rival Shia militias that Sadr himself helped foster; and the Iraqi government itself.
To carve out a role for himself among these actors, Sadr began in 2003 to portray his Shia movement as an indigenous Iraqi nationalist and anti-US one, transcending the sectarian divide, and one that had developed from within the nation as opposed to the exiled Shia parties.
In 2004, he declared his solidarity with Arab Sunni insurgents besieged in Fallujah by United States forces, distancing himself from the exiled Iraqi Shia factions cooperating with the US. He sought to re-establish his Iraqi nationalist credentials in 2013, the beginning of his attempt to project himself as a leader of protest politics.
Sadr and the politics of protest
During the 2013 Arab Sunni protests in the Anbar province against the government of Nouri al-Maliki, Sadr expressed solidarity with the demonstrators, labelling the protests as "Iraq's Arab Spring".
In this, Sadr, a Shia cleric, challenged his fellow Shia, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, illuminating how analysing Iraq's politics through the Shia-Sunni binary fails to account for intense intra-sectarian political rivalries.
Supporters of Moqtada al-Sadr shout slogans during a protest against government corruption outside the Green Zone in Baghdad [REUTERS]
Sadr's actions from 2013 onwards do not follow the neat pattern of sectarian-driven politics. He sought to portray himself as part of a combined, deprived Arab Sunni-Shia opposition against an Arab Shia-Sunni political elite that was seen as indifferent to their demands, corrupt and ineffective in terms of governance.
For Iraqi Sunnis to believe that Sadr was an Iraqi nationalist in 2013 would have entailed a suspension of their disbelief, given that his militia was implicated in some of the worst sectarian killings from 2006 to 2008.
Sadr's embrace of the Sunni protesters then served as an attempt to distance himself from the sectarian bloodletting of the past, in addition to the entrenched Iraqi political elite. This 2013 strategy provides the continuity that explains his recent use of the politics of protest.
Unlike the Anbar protests of 2013, the August 2015 protests erupted in the capital Baghdad, Basra, and the Shia towns of Najaf, Karbala, and Hilla, over corruption in the government and incessant electricity cuts. Sistani delivered a sermon during those protests calling upon Abadi to tackle this corruption.
Sadr has developed Sistani's model of a cleric who does not hold political office, but influences government in the form of the clergy as loyal opposition.
A few months later, Sadr followed Sistani's lead, continuing the pressure on the prime minister to follow through with those reforms.
Sadr has developed Sistani's model of a cleric who does not hold political office, but influences government in the form of the clergy as loyal opposition. However, they differ in terms of the style of pressure. Sistani rarely makes public appearance and his influence is conveyed subtly through sermons and religious declarations.
In February, Sadr rallied the "Iraqi Shia street" in massive outpourings of fealty, more akin to the rallies of Hassan Nasrallah of Hezbollah. Sadr's own website highlighted his ability to bring "millions" on to the streets during this rally. The rationale behind Sadr's politics of protest is part of his decade-long search for a political model to elevate him among the fray of Iraq's Shia politicians, partisans, and militias.
Sadr's politico-religious model
Sadr in his early years raised a sectarian militia, Jaish al-Mahdi (al-Mahdi Army), which served as the basis of his power. It clashed with US forces on numerous occasions and was eventually dealt a military blow when Maliki deployed the Iraqi army, with US air support, against it in Basra and Sadr City in 2008. Afterwards, Sadr rebranded the militia as the Peace Brigades, and for the most part refrained from armed conflict.
However, those within the Mahdi Army who wanted to continue fighting split into numerous Shia militias, benefiting from Iranian aid. Sadr's Peace Brigades were eclipsed by these militias, becoming just one of many sub-state Shia actors.
The splinters, such as Asaib Ahl al-Haq, even became rivals, clashing with their co-religionists in Peace Brigades in February. To elevate himself above the array of these militias, who captured the limelight in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group, Sadr embraced the politics of street protest.
Sadr's latest political manoeuvering has demonstrated an increasingly hybrid model, that is not a solely religious network, political party, or militia, but a combination of these and more.
Muqtada today sits at the helm of a network of interlocking components, a religious organisation, the Ahrar or "Freeborn Bloc", a party that runs for political office, a print and TV media empire, and a series of NGOs. Sadr is still too young to elevate himself to his father's status as a learned religious scholar.
Nonetheless, he has proved himself as a shrewd political operator, elevating himself from relative obscurity in 2003, to a cult-of-personality and Shia sub-culture status that will remain as a fixture in Iraq's chaotic politics.
aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/03/iraq-reinvention-muqtada-al-sadr-160309061939234.html
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As we await Iran’s openness
By Abdulrahman al-Rashed
Wednesday, 9 March 2016
Some sense change in Iran, noting the defeat of some extremist leaders during recent legislative elections, and thinking this is due to the nuclear deal. In reality, however, extremists’ grip has been strengthened. We have not yet seen a trace of the nuclear deal’s awaited political, economic and social effects.
The fact that two hardliners lost their seats during the recent elections means nothing because there are many hardliners in government, and even when some lose their posts, Iran’s behavior and policies do not change.
This is what experts on Iranian affairs confirmed in Abu Dhabi during a workshop organized by the Emirates Policy Center this week to discuss shifts in Iran’s political landscape following the nuclear deal and legislative elections.
There is a popular desire to be open to the world and to work with it, but the extremist regime fears that openness will mark its end, so it will fight it. The regime controls all decision-making, funds and market activity.
One of the experts at the Abu Dhabi workshop said the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) controls 68 ports and maritime centers, which it uses to export and import without paying taxes or fees to the state.
The IRGC also controls many economic institutions such as petroleum refineries and major governmental companies, so economic openness will not be with real private or public sectors, but with state institutions.
The long view
Even the luckiest past experiences of openness took a long time to yield economic or political results. China, which adopted an open-door policy after it signed a historic deal with the United States in the 1970s, remained closed for around 20 more years until the world sensed real domestic economic change.
"It is too early to sense change in Iran, where there are apprehensions about reconciling with the West and opening up to the world "- Abdulrahman al-Rashed
Moscow, which accepted opening up to the world in the mid-1980s, did not change until 1991, and then the Soviet Union split into 15 republics.
It is too early to sense change in Iran, where there are apprehensions about reconciling with the West and opening up to the world. Many high-ranking figures have voiced their intention to oppose any domestic changes. As is typical with totalitarian regimes, economic benefits are expected to only enrich the ruling class, which will then be better able to resist change.
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/2016/03/09/As-we-await-Iran-s-openness.html
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Let the Syrian hostilities begin again at Geneva
Chris Doyle
Wednesday, 9 March 2016
This Wednesday afternoon in Geneva, attempts are due once more to bring about talks on Syria. Well into the second week of an imperfect but partially successful semi-cessation of hostilities, will it be the political arena in which combat resumes?
These diplomatic efforts are of course not for the resumption of talks as some in the media have described them but actually to try to get them going. In February, there were talks about having proximity talks, to lead to direct talks with representatives of the Syrian regime and an opposition delegation for the first time since 2013. Sadly, these did not materialize and to save the whole process, UN special envoy, Staffan de Mistura announced their suspension until 25 February.
The resumption in efforts to hold indirect talks were scheduled to start on 7 March, delayed to 9 March and now possibly delayed to 15 March. De Mistura says the 9 March date was only “pencilled in”. It seems all agreements on Syria, all dates, all commitments are at best just “pencilled in”. Red lines of course were simply there to be erased and ignored.
The head of the opposition High Negotiations Committee, Dr Riyad Hijab stated on 7 March that “the current conditions are not favorable for a resumption of negotiations.” Leaving aside the issue that negotiations did not even start, this begs a huge question.
In such a bitter protracted conflict as the Syrian, are there favorable conditions for negotiations? It would be like waiting for the Atlantic Ocean to have no waves or for snow in Riyadh.
What there is - is a need for negotiations. The war has to end for the sake of Syrians if for nobody else. Given that none of the sides looks like it can win, these conflicts will end with talks and a deal eventually.
''Syrians fervently dream of an end of the last five years of hell with the caveat that the majority will not accept such devastation just to return to the ancient regime or some extremist tyranny''-Chris Doyle
From an opposition perspective perhaps the talks might have been more optimal before the Russian military intervention in September but no doubt the conditions were not right then either. Will waiting and holding out benefit Syrians? Might it just convince Russia to push ever harder for an all out crushing victory by overwhelming force.
The cessation of hostilities has shown Syrians just a glimpse of what peace might feel like. Where fighting did calm down, Syrians were able to come out of their shelters, visit families and friends and do things that had been impossible for weeks, months or years.
Delineated ceasefire
Yet this is fragile. Reports indicate that Russian planes have mostly been grounded but not all Syrian regime aircraft. The shaky cessation of hostilities has to become a proper delineated ceasefire with proper modalities and monitors. The absence of fighting must become a norm not a one-off, and where productive economic life can start to replace the dominant war economy.
Aid has begun to enter besieged areas where up to a possible million people have been eking out an existence. Since the Munich meeting?, the UN? has delivered 236 aid trucks benefitting 115,000 people.
It aims to get another 225,000 people by the end of next week. This is a considerable success given the low starting base and must be built on. The sieges are not lifted and the delivery of aid must be speeded up. Many issues can be addressed such as the failure to vaccinate up to half Syria’s children.
The most uplifting moment was last Friday when over 100 protests took place across Syria in non-regime held areas. It was 2011 once again. The popular grassroots Syrian desire for change undimmed by the carnage. Syrian hopes were voiced once more having been ignored against the background of competing ambitions that tore Syria apart.
Those threatened by this are those that object to popular will. The Syrian regime will take little comfort that protests were not in the areas it controlled and will fear the day they resume in their own backyard. Jabha Al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, tried to suppress demonstrations in Idlib.
Above all, these are exactly the same parties who fear the end of hostilities. Syrians fervently dream of an end of the last five years of hell with the caveat that most, in my view the majority, will not accept such devastation just to return to the ancient regime or some extremist tyranny.
The regional power brokers are still reluctant to accept that outright “victory” is not achievable. Putin needs an exit, but one on Russia’s terms
The current lull in fighting is a fragile moment, nigh impossible to replicate in the near future. Far from being unfavorable conditions, surely these are the only times when political steps forward can be made.
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/2016/03/09/Let-the-Syrian-hostilities-begin-again-at-Geneva.html
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Iran mocks Obama
Saudi Gazette
Mar 10, 2016
Iran’s new ballistic missile tests this week are a completely predictable provocation to the international community. Released from the tough sanctions over their nuclear weapons program, Iran’s leaders now feel at liberty to thumb their noses at an Obama administration they regard as weak and which they hold in some contempt.
Iran tested a long-range ballistic missile last October before the signing of the nuclear accord and, just in case anyone had failed to get the message, there were more launches in January.
The folly of the premature lifting of a regime of international trade and financial sanctions is now clear. They had triggered rising popular unrest which threatened to topple the government. Now the sanctions are gone and Iran is at liberty to step up its dangerously destabilizing regional interference.
Indeed Tuesday’s test firings of the medium-range Qiam-1 missiles is a clear demonstration of the disdain in which Tehran holds the US and Europe. The launches were designed to demonstrate not only the prowess of Iranian technology but also the helplessness of Washington and Brussels. Not only is Iran financially re-empowered but it has escaped any sort of censure for its blatant interference in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon and member states of the GCC.
Until the signing of the Geneva nuclear agreement which, because it only lasts for 15 years, is very far from being the epic deal that the Western powers claimed, Iran was forbidden missile tests. That UN Resolution 1929 has now gone and been replaced with Resolution 2231, which merely “calls upon” the Iranian regime not to test its rocketry. It is now clear that Washington can call upon Tehran as loud and as long as it likes, no one will be listening.
The sanctions under this new resolution, which amount to financial constraints on 11 organizations and individuals connected with the missile program, are as meaningless as they are useless. With access to its formerly-frozen billions and companies from all over the world suckered into sweetheart deals to rebuild Iran’s decayed infrastructure, fresh sanctions that really hurt and punish are frankly inconceivable. Not only would they take an age to put back in place, assuming of course that Moscow and Beijing play along, but they would also be a farce.
The Iranian regime is busy moving most of its assets beyond the reach of Western financial regulators. There may not be such good returns from shaky Russian and Chinese banks and investment funds, but at least the Iranians know the money will be readily available to them.
In the same vein, Iran became very good at sanctions-busting, even in the face of strict international controls. The criminal smuggling networks that grew up over time as better and better ways were found to escape the economic and financial straitjacket that Iran was supposed to be wearing may not be necessary any longer. But they are unlikely to be disbanded entirely. Indeed it is highly probable that more efficient and deeply-concealed networks will be put in place, just in case.
But the truth is that the likelihood of Iran once again being subject to crippling sanctions is so remote as to be impossible. For the sake of a desperately-needed foreign policy success, President Barack Obama sold the pass to the Iranians and in so doing left America’s friends and allies in the lurch.
saudigazette.com.sa/opinion/editorial/iran-mocks-obama/
URL: https://newageislam.com/middle-east-press/israel-losing-friends-high-places/d/106602
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